tanhauser gate
when I first started out in the consulting industry I found that I had a great deal of reading to do. I was new to town: new job, new rental, new set of clothing. My first employer was wild. Though a family man on the outside, complete with three kids, camper, and overweight dog he routinely worked with people who went by Dragon, DarkStar, and Rain Dancer. We met our clients in bars, coffee shops, diners, and high-end restaurants. Each meeting was followed up with a hushed parking-lot chat that recapped what each of us heard and an open pondering session on how to best go over our plan of action to secure work with them. It was wild looking back at it.
In order to get me molded into the world of hacking I had a lot of subculturing to do. My coworkers regularly asked me if I had seen Hackers, Sneakers, War Game, Blade Runner, or whether I had read Cryptonomicon, Altered Carbon, or Dune yet. Our slack was rife with references to things that I had neither seen or experienced.
a couple of things stood out, but for the time that I have I want to just jot down one (I'll probably add to this later):
tears in the rain monologue, blade runner (1982)
I've seen things... seen things you little people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion bright as magnesium... I rode on the back decks of a blinker and watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments... they'll be gone.
in this particular scene, Roy Batty is a character that plays the role of one of the last remaining replicants who made his way back to Earth. a couple of things are required to really understand the weight of this 42 word monologue.
- Replicants are bioengineered humans who have been created to perform tasks that would be deemed unsightly for normal, fully biological humans to do. They can breathe without air, have increased endurance, strength, etc. Some have no emotions, some exist solely as prostitutes, all are slaves to their purpose and design
- Roy was a soldier who fought in offworld campaigns and deemed too dangerous for normal humanity.
- Roy found love and life and synchronistically worked that into his worldview of death and destruction. He ruthlessly loved and killed.
in the final scene, this monologue takes place (by Batty) before he's killed the protagonist. the whole movie is meant to question "What does it mean to be human?" and is a delightful thing to ponder for anyone who considers the lives of the disabled, impaired, or violent as they near death. what is lost when you consider the death of your parents or the one's who know you best? what knowledge of you did they keep for themselves?
/g